Primaluna - Dialogue Premium Integrated Amplifier (EL34)

Don't buy good. Buy perfect. Iconic. State of the art. Something that will still be relevant ten years from now and that is built to last a lifetime.

Thinking of buying an amp because of good reviews? Every product, no matter what, gets good reviews. So how do you know if it's simply good or world-class?

Ask yourself is it so good would a magazine reviewer spend their own money and buy it for themselves? Many reviewers have done just that because every PrimaLuna reviewed has a Stereophile Class A rating. Class A is defined as"Best attainable sound for a component of it's kind, almost without practical considerations" with practical considerations meaning at any price. The Absolute Sound's Dick Olsher is possibly the most experienced and technically adept writer on staff when it comes to tube amplification. He declared "It is my current benchmark in integrated tube amplifiers." resulting in a 2014 Editor's Choice Award.

Sure it looks good. But that should never be a reason to buy. Don't be fooled by overpriced name brands and lofty descriptions that cover up mediocre build quality. Any audiophile who is also an electrical engineer would see it instantly. $8000 integrated amp weighing 36lbs with one printed circuit board and no-name parts inside and a push button chip volume control or a $3399 integrated weighing 64lbs hand made with Swiss point to point wiring and chock full of the finest exotic parts, with engineered features that mean something.

DiaLogue Premium features:

Point to point wired with Swiss made cable. It's obvious that point to point wiring sounds better and lasts longer than wave-soldered thin printed circuit boards. It's what sets PrimaLuna apart and is part of our credo. In the new DiaLogue Premium we went a step further by using Swiss-made, silver-plated, oxygen-free continuous crystal (OCC) copper with a Teflon dielectric in the critical signal path for superior signal speed and increased clarity.

TAKMAN Resistors. If you bought a lesser preamp, you would pay hudreds to make this upgrade. Easy to identify through their pink color, these premium resistors made in Japan are popular with those who rebuild and upgrade there gear. "Modders" love TAKMAN for their low noise, linearity, and musicality.

SCR Tinfoil Caps. Made in France, these capacitors are used in the critical signal paths and while they are expensive, the PrimaLuna team felt that they could not be left out after careful listening comparisons with many different types.

DiaLogue Class toroidal power transformer. DiaLogue Class products will have our largest, massive toroidal power transformers, resulting in a tube amplifier with dynamic range that will shame even solid state amplifiers can't compare with and the lowest noise floor possible.

AC Offset Killer. A PrimaLuna exclusive. This is another PrimaLuna "magic bullet" design to make our products so quiet, you will get goose-bumps. It's job is to keep the power transformer as quiet as possible. Companies sell aftermarket products called "humbusters" for upwards of $399. Our toroidal transformers are already low in hum. This circuit takes it to a place no other manufacturer dreams of going.

New front-end circuitry. The DiaLogue Premium uses three 12AU7 tubes per channel. The result is even lower distortion and increased bandwidth. The change in dynamic range is stunning! Distortion levels in the first stage have dropped by a factor of five at low levels, and at least 20 at higher levels, above one volt.

Remote controlled Triode/Ultra-linear Switching – With the push of a button on the remote control, you can go between the powerful authority of ultra-linear operation to the sweet warmth you can only get from triodes. Your listening library will suddenly become larger.

Dedicated subwoofer output. If you're favorite sub only uses line-level inputs, such as the JL Audio subwoofers, the DiaLogue Premium Integrated makes it simple to use!

The DiaLogue Premium Series also includes the same innovative circuits found in the ProLogue Premium series, that protect the amp and improve sound at every level:

Primaluna's exclusive Adaptive AutoBias.If anybody tells you that they have auto bias, ask them precisely how. It's 99% likely to be untrue. As with all PrimaLuna amps, you never have to worry about biasing your amp ever again, and the need for matched tubes is eliminated. You can run EL34, KT88, KT120, even KT150 tubes, as well as many others. AAB does the rest while improving sound quality. Tubes are constantly monitored and kept in their best operating range, reducing distortion by up to 50%!

BTI-circuit. BTI stands for "Bad Tube Indicator." On the chassis’ deck in front of each power tube, is a small LED that lights up if the tube goes bad. The circuit then puts the amp into protection mode. With other brands, this may be when you have to break out the soldering iron to replace a plate resistor, and replace two or four tubes because your amp requires matched sets. With PrimaLuna, you just replace the tube it tells you to (no matched tubes required), and turn the amp back on. No hassles, no headaches.

KT150 Compatible and designed for the future – In 2006 PrimaLuna introduced the original DiaLogue series; the first amplifiers designed to be as close to being future proof as humanly possible. Back then nobody imagined a tube like the KT120, let alone the KT150, which combines the sweetness of a 300B with bass and control never seen before. Now other companies are scrambling to make a product built to handle the demands of this incredible tube.

All PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium and ProLogue Premium amplifiers and integrated amplifiers are built with huge power transformers and filaments supplies needed to run KT150 tubes. And the ingenious design of our exclusive Adaptive AutoBias circuit means that PrimaLuna buyers from ten years ago don’t have to sell off their system to enjoy new tube developments.

No planned obsolesce. Isn’t that a refreshing concept? And while we can’t guarantee being future-proof, we seem to have done a good job thus far.

SmartWatts design with a tube life of up to ten years. When you buy any tube product, you need to think about the operational costs to own it. Many brands quote changing power tubes after 2000 hours. Not PrimaLuna. If an amp runs the tubes hard, its sound quality can start to degrade in 9 months and need to be re-tubed in a year. What’s fun about that? Understanding tube life is easy when you understand this.

SuperQuiet Line Inputs. Our exclusive design that keeps stray noise and signals from other sources out of the path of what you are listening to, while shortening the internal signal path to almost zero. It is so quiet you will absolutely hear things on your recordings you didn’t know exists.

ALPS Blue Velvet motorized volume control tracks better so a defined stereo image is established and doesn't collapse as you raise and lower volume. And it will stay quiet, adhering to PrimaLuna's guiding principle of "Built to last a lifetime". This part alone costs ten times more than a simple "chip" that we could have used.

PTP-circuit. If the power transformer should overheat, this "Power Transformer Protection" circuit cuts primary power, allows the amp to cool down, then resets itself.

OTP-circuit. The "Output Transformer Protection" circuit protects the output transformers in the event of a user error crossing speaker wires.

As with all PrimaLuna components, the DiaLogue Premium Integrated is made by hand with the finest point-to-point wiring and quality equal to—or better than—any product you can buy at any price. All packaged in a high-gloss, hand-rubbed finish.